Book 2, Chapter 13: Bastinado
A snort came from the gallery screen as Secondos lay still on the floor. Based on the glimpse of a yellow jacket behind the lattice, it was almost certainly Bel. Even Warren, beside Clara, had chuckled, though he then hid it with a cough.
The kadi, however, was very much not laughing. Her small hands had curled into fists, which pushed into the cushions of her divan.
“Mr. Merchant,” she said, eerily calm. “You came into my court. You bowed to me, then you said the wrong greetings, but I thought that was okay, since you just didn’t know any better. But this… Were you lying to me all along? When I am representing the Sultan-Basileus?”
“Esteemed kadi—”
“Who was it?” she snapped. “Who was the one who told you about the dinner? Tell me. Now.”
Secondos pushed himself up, then bowed again. “I cannot say, esteemed kadi.”
Princess Mikhaila’s face darkened. “Cannot? Or will not?”
Is this where the kadi sends him over to their Matriarch for ‘divine guidance’?
“I—the distinction, in this case, is one of, of, philosophy, of the limits of liberty, and—”
“Mr. Merchant.” The kadi stood up from the dais. “Unlike you, I have been well-educated. And Father has trained us on what to do when someone insults our family. When they disobey their betters. Father says I should use the, the…” She tilted her head and bit into her thumb, trying hard to remember something.
“The bastinado!” she announced triumphantly. “That’s the one. It’s for the feet. The Sultan-Basileus said it’s very effective.”
Oh.
The kadi didn’t look like a meek girl anymore.
Clara gulped.
Secondos grunted as a pair of soldiers approached him.
“Do you know about it? It’s a special rod.” Mikhaila continued with eager helpfulness. “You turn the person upside down, then use it on the soles of their feet. Father says it works very quickly, and—”
“It was Prince Sellem!”
Secondos’s shriek echoed off the dome, and the gallery went quiet. Justan frowned, looking even more unnerved than he had been under the Esperança’s turrets.
“My brother?” Mikhaila’s eyes widened.
The prince? There was a pang of unease in Clara’s stomach. She’d been confident cracking open Secondos was the right way forward for this case, and it probably was, but involving a prince—or, well, another prince—always had some inherent danger to it.
“Yes, esteemed kadi. Prince Sellem.” Secondos’s voice was low, as if hoping the quiet would draw the name back into his mouth. He was still face down on the carpet. “His Imperial Highness was at the dinner that night. He was the one who told me what happened. As he is a very busy man, and I often do business with him, he asked me to come and testify in his stead. Please understand, esteemed kadi, that the prince’s complicated affairs of state do not pause over minor matters such as a merchant’s death, and he felt the matter was best handled by a man of commerce who knew the deceased.”
“So he asked you to lie for him,” said Clara.
“I have told no lies. Perhaps I may have told some minor lies. But the testimony was not a lie. It was simply a convenience, a way to deliver the truth unto this court without having to trouble the prince. The dinner did happen, and the Arcadian did bring the food—His Imperial Highness saw it himself.”
The question, then, is why Prince Sellem did not want to testify. I don’t buy this ‘convenience’ talk.
Princess Mikhaila stared down at the prostrate merchant for a long moment. Then she motioned to the soldiers beside him.
“This one wasted a lot of my time. And today, I am speaking for Father, so that is a big problem. Take him. And give him… twenty strokes of the bastinado, to start. No, make it ten. He cooperated, in the end, so the stick shall come with a carrot.”
The two men moved forward at once, grabbing Secondos’s arms while he flailed. “No, please—”
“And then.” Mikhaila held up a small finger. “I want him on a donkey. Backwards. Holding a sign that says ‘I lied to the Sultan-Basileus’. Parade him through the spice market, so that all the other merchants can see. Father says that is what we do with false witnesses, because then nobody will trust them for a very long time.”
Mikhaila nodded firmly, as if checking the lesson off in her head.
“Yes. That is the correct punishment. I am sure of it.”
Clara bit her lip. She didn’t want to see a man tortured, but this wasn’t like Iris angry about tea spilled on a dress. This was a serious matter of state in a foreign nation.
The soldiers dragged Secondos away.
Princess Mikhaila sat back down on the divan. She slowly turned her head to Justan. “Brother. Did you know about Sellem?”
Justan rose and gave a deep bow to the kadi—nothing like the discreet nod from the start of the trial. “Of course not, esteemed kadi. I am as shocked as you are.”
“And where is our brother now?”
“I do not know with certainty. He does not always inform me of his movements.”
It was a careful sentence.
“But he is in Istantinople?” asked the kadi.
“Yes, I believe so. I was with him just yesterday.”
“Then you will find him, and you will bring him to my court tomorrow, and he will tell me what he saw at that dinner. And I will let Father know what he has done.”
“It shall be done, esteemed kadi,” said Justan.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Mikhaila glanced at the clerk, who raised his staff and struck the floor three times.
“The kadi adjourns this court! The Basilica Adalet shall reopen tomorrow at the same hour, by the grace of the Goddess and the law of His Imperial Majesty Sultan-Basileus Konstantinos Murad the Seventh, may his shadow ever lengthen! Rise, and depart in silence!”
After making their way back to the Arcadian Embassy, Bel’s group reconvened in the main sitting room. It was a long, high-ceilinged space. Though the windows were closed for security, the use of strategically placed cooling crystals created an effect similar to air conditioning.
Besides Clara, there were five others sitting at the round table in the center of the room: Bel sprawled in an armchair with her boots up on a footstool, Luisa seated at attention beside her, Iris and Conrad with their typical von Rhenia seriousness, and Warren stoically silent, which was quickly becoming his default state—and Clara would get to the bottom of why he was acting so strangely, when things calmed down.
Emma appeared from the wine cellar with the bottle Bel had asked for and handed it to the duchess.
“Thank you. Now, let us take stock, my dears.” Bel poured herself a generous glass and held the bottle out in a vague gesture of offering. Nobody accepted. “I have to say today was much more entertaining than I expected. Second-hand yapping! Goddess preserve me, Clara, I am going to have that engraved on something, so that I might gaze upon it during difficult moments.”
“It really wasn’t that clever,” said Clara, who had not yet stopped feeling pleased with herself.
“They say wordplay is the most vulgar form of wit,” said Iris. “But I suppose even I shall have to admit it was amusing.”
Luisa cleared her throat. “Humor aside, it is good that the testimony against Grandfather was dismantled so thoroughly. Counsel Casewell, how did you know about his penchant for coffee?”
Clara looked away. “Bel, uh, told me about it the other day, when we were talking about him.”
Bel smirked, but didn’t contradict Clara’s words. It seemed Bel hadn’t told Luisa about Pedro’s impromptu visit.
“It was a well done interrogation. I am looking forward to adapting your techniques for… personal use,” said Conrad, somehow scowling and smiling at the same time. “That said, the discovery of Prince Sellem’s involvement complicates things.”
“Justan was not pleased when Secondos was exposed, and anything that’s bad for him is good for us,” reasoned Bel. “It’s hard to say what Sellem’s intentions were, but even the little kadi was suitably outraged, which is another positive sign.”
“Speaking of Princess Mikhaila,” said Iris, placing her index finger on her chin, “what did you think of her, Clara?”
“Even though she was clearly out of her depth and far too young to be a judge, she did a better job than I expected. Honestly, I kind of admire her for that,” said Clara. “Bastinado aside.”
Iris pursed her lips, and Bel nodded.
“I agree,” said Bel. “The girl was a sight to behold. I almost wish we could take her back with us and give her a post in the navy. She’d be great at getting the troops in shape.”
Luisa frowned. “Please do not speak so casually about kidnapping a daughter of the Sultan-Basileus. We came here to resolve an international incident, not to start an even bigger one.”
Bel laughed.
“Based on their joint visit during our arrival, I had thought Prince Sellem was politically allied with Prince Justan,” said Warren. “Or at least as aligned as Byzottoman princes can be. But Justan appeared to be taken aback by the discovery of Sellem’s involvement. So the question we have to ask ourselves is why—if there really was a dinner, as Secondos claims, why didn’t Sellem testify himself? Why send a babbling spice merchant to lie on his behalf? The words of a prince carry more weight than the words of a merchant.”
“Perhaps Sellem is afraid of House de Bragança,” offered Bel.
“Perhaps he killed the man,” offered Iris brightly.
“I agree that it’s very odd—I’ve been thinking it over since the truth came out,” said Clara. “The answer must have to do with the purpose of the dinner. Surely an undercover former duke and a prince don’t meet by coincidence, so what were they really doing that night?”
If only my client were here to tell us about it.
“I can tell you one thing,” said Bel. “Papai does not enjoy eating with strangers. He’s very particular—if he was really at that table, there was an important reason for it.”
The group started to speculate about what business Pedro could possibly have with a Byzottoman prince, with suggestions ranging from ‘he heard there was good coffee’ to ‘he wanted to borrow secret Byzottoman books’ to ‘he was trying to interfere with the Sultan-Basileus’s succession’.
Clara stroked her chin. “We need to be practical here—it’s already afternoon, and it’d be good for us to have at least a working theory before the trial continues tomorrow. We don’t know where Lord Pedro is, so we can’t get answers from his side. And Sellem is a prince, so we can’t really go investigate him personally. That leaves only one way forward.”
Warren raised an eyebrow. “You mean Anis Clovos, the victim?”
“Yes. There are reasons two people as important as Lord Pedro and Prince Sellem might want to meet. But none of them would explain why they involved a common spice trader. We’ve been told Anis was a merchant of standing, but that doesn’t tell us why a prince is prosecuting his alleged killer, or why another prince was at his table the night he died.”
“What are you proposing?” asked Conrad, leaning forward as if sensing the possibility of something interesting.
You ask, and I shall oblige.
“We know where his office was in the merchant’s quarter. We know he had several employees. He’s a merchant, so presumably he also has plenty of documents and ledgers.” Clara tapped her fingers against her desk. “If I can get into his office, or even just talk to the people who worked there, we might learn more about what Anis was actually up to.”
And maybe there’d be something she could use to understand whatever truth was hiding behind the ledger Pedro gave her. Assuming it belonged to Anis.
“Get into his office? You can’t be serious, Casewell,” said Warren flatly. “This is a foreign capital, the accuser is a prince who has every reason to want this case to disappear quietly, and the affair involves yet another prince. If you are caught poking through his office without permission, even diplomatic immunity will not protect you from being expelled.”
“All she has to do is not get caught,” said Conrad, now with a full smile.
“Lord Conrad, you cannot seriously be entertaining this,” Warren protested. “As Lady Luisa said earlier, our task is to resolve an international incident, not to expand its scope.”
“And yet this is the only plan currently on the table,” said Bel. “Or do you have a proposal, besides waiting and seeing what they spring on us tomorrow? Justan is not to be underestimated, and he will surely spend tonight talking to Sellem and rebuilding his case. We do not have the luxury of passing up an opportunity.”
Clara rose. “Bel’s right. I’ll go out to the merchant’s quarter and see what I can find out.”
Warren stood up before she’d even finished the sentence. “Absolutely not.”
“Excuse me?”
“Even if an investigation is to happen, you cannot be the one to go, Casewell.” His voice was lower than usual, with none of the snark to soften the edge. “If anyone is to make inquiries around the city, it should be someone of standing. All of us may have diplomatic protection in theory, but out in the merchant’s quarter, you are simply a foreign commoner asking inconvenient questions. If the Byzottomans did something to you, it would not carry the same implications as if they hurt a noble. You’re smart enough to see this, even if you wish it weren’t so.”
Clara clicked her tongue. As much as she hated it, he had a semblance of a point.
Damn it.
Diplomatic immunity was only worth the implied threat behind it. Would Arcadia really mobilize itself for Clara Casewell? And more importantly, would the Byzottomans believe that?
“I concur,” said Iris. “Clara, you cannot go. The risk is not acceptable—we have already nearly lost you once, and I find myself without appetite for a second attempt.”
“So you want me to just sit here?”
“Of course not. That would be a tragic waste of a pleasant afternoon.” Iris’s eyes brightened. “Emma! Grab my parasol. We shall go rug shopping and find something nice for Clara’s future office.”
“My lady, we can shop after the trial is over,” said Clara, prompting Iris to pout. “Yet I understand the risks to my safety, which is why I wasn’t planning on going alone. Lord Conrad, would you accompany me?”
Conrad pursed his lips.
Come on, I know you’d rather do this than accompany Iris’s shopping.
“I shall do so. I am interested in witnessing more of your work, Miss Casewell. And the von Rhenia name would extend to us all the protection we need.”
“Mm.” Iris put a finger under her mouth. “I suppose Conrad is perfectly capable of skulking.”
“I—I do not skulk, Sister.”
“You skulk constantly. It is one of your defining traits.”
Conrad shrugged, but his cheeks reddened. “Ahem. Lady Luisa, would you care to accompany us?”
Wait, is he trying to turn my investigation into a date?